

Keith Gottfried
Gottfried Shareholder Advisory
Keith Gottfried is the founder and Managing Member of Gottfried Shareholder Advisory LLC, a boutique strategic advisory/consulting firm focused on advising public companies, the C-suite, and boards of directors on shareholder activism preparedness and defense. Keith is a veteran of numerous contested shareholder meetings and, over the course of a career that spans over 30 years, Keith has advised numerous companies in connection with high-profile proxy contests, special meeting demands, consent solicitations, and withhold vote/vote no campaigns. Prior to founding his firm, Keith led the shareholder activism defense practice at a large global law firm. Keith has broad industry experience, having advised on shareholder activism matters in the apparel, automobile parts, banking, casual dining, closed-end mutual funds, consumer products, defense, energy, financial services, healthcare, information technology, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, medical equipment, motion picture, natural resources, pharmaceuticals, REITs, retail, semiconductor, shipping, software, telecommunications, and waste management industries. Keith’s work as an advisor on shareholder activism and other matters has been recognized on numerous occasions. In both 2018 and 2019, Keith was named by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) to its list of Directorship 100 honorees, which recognizes the most influential people in the boardroom community, including directors, corporate governance experts, regulators, and advisors. Keith publishes and presents regularly and has been frequently quoted by the national business media on shareholder activism trends and developments. Keith is also a frequent contributor to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, the leading online resource for discourse on corporate governance, on topics relating to shareholder activism. Because activism campaigns may often resemble political campaigns, Keith also brings to clients the political insight he gained as a US Senate-confirmed White House appointee in the administration of President George W. Bush. Prior to joining the George W. Bush Administration, Keith served in senior executive roles in Silicon Valley, including serving as General Counsel at Borland Software Corporation, then a publicly traded company. Keith holds an M.B.A., with high honors, from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, a J.D., cum laude, from Boston University’s School of Law, where he was an Edward F. Hennessey Distinguished Scholar of Law and a G. Joseph Tauro Scholar of Law, and a B.S. in Economics, concentrated in accounting, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.